Victorian Prose marks a high point in the English Literature canon. For the first time the novel takes precedence over other forms of writing. This is also the age of periodicals and magazines opening up a different way of reading and writing in the form of serialisation. The Victorian novelists: Charles Dickens, George Eliot, WM Thackeray, Thomas Hardy, RL Stevenson, The Bronte sisters and others explored various themes and ideas which took the English novel in different directions from the conventional modes of storytelling and narrative.
An intense engagement with the social questions confronted by the individual as in The Mill on the floss, Jude the obscure,or Tess of the D’ urbervilles is one overriding feature. The internal exploration of the psyche as in Wuthering heights, or Jane Eyre and Villette is a pronounced feature. The depiction of the deteriorating social reality especially in the aftermath of industrialisation is found in many novels. Adventure and Gothic romance are some of the other themes. It is an age marked by self assurance but also irony, agony and strife.